1 year post op report

[Raven]

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to give a little 1 year post operation report:

It was one year ago today that my wife kissed me and they wheeled me into the operating room for the first of two surgeries in the span of eight days. Well a year later I would like to say I'm feeling pretty good. SSD is really a non issue with me, the balance issues and tinittus had me depressed for a while but I got myself out of that funk.............on my own without anybody's help or with "happy pills", basically just by thinking it could be worse, it could be worse. I can pretty much do everything I could do before the surgeries, sometimes not very gracefull. To look at me you would never know I had brain surgery. Am I out of the woods........nope, probably will never be out of the woods, still have another AN that could rear it's ugly head, not to mention the tumors on my spine. But for now I don't even think about it, seems to help.

When I found this forum I learned so much that I wanted to give a little back and not just walk away. Hopefully the newly diagnosed or even the ones in wait and watch will read this and see that there are postive outcomes! When somebody asks me how I'm feeling, I tell them "It could be worse, but it used to be better"

Thanks for listening everyone,

John

[Jim Scott]

Hey, John ~

Thanks for the update.  It's good to learn that you're past the hard times and doing well, 12 months on.  I think you have exactly the right attitude  - not worrying about something that might never happen and realizing 'it could be worse' ( a lot worse).  That will go a long way in making your recovery easier as well as quicker.  I appreciate your sticking around to update us.  Thanks again. 

Jim

[sgerrard]

Hats off to you, sir, two surgeries in a row like that can't be so easy. Thanks for the update and the upbeat attitude.

I know you do post replies here fairly regularly, but please feel free to post your own updates as often as you like as well.

(I might also note that your signature line shows your surgeries as Nov 2008, which I assume is supposed to be 2007).

Steve

[Raven]

Steve, thanks for pointing out the error in my signiture........it's fixed now.

Yep, I think a change in my attitude really helped, no need to go thru what we all go thru and be depressed at the same time.

John

[Raven]

Cheri,

Bone decompression or Middle Fossa decompression is the removal of the surrounding bone around the tumor which allows the tumor to grow. It is done thru the middle fossa approach with no facial issues afterwards.

Here is why we did it:

Two days before my scheduled surgery to remove the left side AN, I woke up and could hardly hear out of my right side. It is not a slam dunk they can preserve your hearing thru the middle fossa approach. So removal of the right side tumor was out of the question as it could leave me totally deaf........... so we did the bone decompression. It worked and so far so good.

John

[Raven]

Hey Cheri,

The tumor originates on the part of the 8th cranial nerve inside a bony canal called the internal auditory canal, and grows from there.

John